


the adventures of gerry delano, his gay uncle, and his competent lesbian aunt

by InsertLogin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, tags to be added as the story goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25640644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertLogin/pseuds/InsertLogin
Summary: Gerard Keay was twelve years old and staring at a door that shouldn’t have been there. He elected to ignore it and go to work on finding one of those books Mum was crazy about.Michael was distorted and figuring out the truth about the Archives and what happened to the other assistants. The “finding out about the terrible fates of the other assistants” bothered him more than he liked, and unfortunately, Michael was more like Michael Shelley than he cared to admit.Helen Richardson was a good real estate agent and selling houses like it was nobody’s business. Everyone knew she could sell a house in any situation, in any condition. She did not think that the situations people had in mind were ones where a boy crashed through one of the few windows with a man taller than he had the right to be following him. Still, let it not be said that Helen Richardson ever backed away from a challenge.or Michael becomes Gerry’s self-appointed uncle. Gerry does not mind this as much as he perhaps should. Helen just wanted to sell a house.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Helen Richardson, Gerard Keay & Michael | The Distortion, Michael | The Distortion & Helen Richardson (The Magnus Archives), Michael | The Distortion & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 9
Kudos: 99





	the adventures of gerry delano, his gay uncle, and his competent lesbian aunt

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I heavily played around with the timeline to make events in this fic work (like Michael (Distortion) was never around when Gerry was a kid). So if you notice the timeline is off, just suspend your disbelief and go along with the story.

Gerard Keay, or Gerry if he had any friends to call him such, was twelve years old and staring at a door that shouldn’t have been there.

At first, Gerry hadn’t even noticed the door. It was rather inconspicuous, after all. But then that was what made it so strange. Every surface in the bookshop had some sort of blemish on it. It came as a result of having supernatural books. 

This door, however, had no blemishes, no scratches, no stains. So he couldn’t help but stare at it. 

The door creaked slightly, and that was definitely the next warning sign. 

One that Gerry elected to ignore. He tore his eyes from it, shrugged, and then went back to his room, using doors that had always been there. There was a new book that Mum wanted, and Gerry thought that maybe if he could manage to find it, or at least give really good information as to where it could be, Mum might stick around for a bit. They could have dinner together, like families were always having in the movies. 

Gerry snorted as he opened his perfectly blemished door to his room. Or, he supposed, his dad could come back from whatever grave he was stuck in. That was as equally likely as Mum staying for dinner. 

Still, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to try, so pushing the weird door out of his mind, he set to work.

The door, much to Gerry’s disappointment, followed him. It never seemed to be around when Mum was, but Mum was almost never around, so Gerry wasn’t sure if it meant anything. 

It changed forms, too. One day it would look like it had been clawed, and the next, it would have paint splotches all over it. Gerry could always tell it was the same door, though. He wanted to continue to ignore it, but it was really starting to get irritating. It made noise all the time and blocked real doors or the things Gerry had hung up on his walls. Sometimes it even blocked  _ books _ .

“Look,” he said eventually, sitting at his desk and scowling at a map. Mum was in Germany now. She had figured out where the book was and went there to collect it on her own. She hadn’t even needed Gerry’s work. “Whatever you are, just leave me alone.”

The door did not leave. 

“It’s really getting annoying,” he said, speaking louder in case the door muffled his voice. “And if you don’t leave, I’ll tell my mum.”

It was an empty threat, but Gerry figured that the door might not be aware of that or would just be too intimidated by the threat. 

The door was not intimidated. In fact, Gerry swore he heard laughter. 

Wincing, he faced it. 

“Alright,” he said. “You can come out and say whatever you want to say, but you can’t do anything else and you can’t do supernatural stuff with your words.”

The door creaked but didn’t open. 

Gerry heaved a sigh and said, “If you’re not even going to say anything, you might as well leave.”

He turned back to his desk, looking back at his map before deciding no, he didn’t want to see where Mum was. It wasn’t often she went to places without him, but when she did, it made him feel like a big fat failure. Better to ignore it and pretend she had left him because she needed him ehre. 

The door creaked again, and Gerry shot it a look. It stalled for a moment, and then it opened. 

A very,  _ very  _ tall man came out of the door. His hair was more golden than blond, and it curled in loops so intricate that Gerry could hardly follow the patterns. He swore it reached the floor, but for some reason, he didn’t see it touch the ground, though he also hadn’t seen an end to the hair. 

Something was wrong with the man’s hands as well, but Gerry had enough sense not to look at the too many joints. 

Which just left the man’s face. Gerry  _ supposed _ he looked normal, but he couldn’t place the man’s age at all, and the way that his eyes seemed to change color and twist into different shapes was uncomfortable, to say the least. 

“What do you want?” Gerry asked, since the man was obviously not going to start the conversation. 

“Wants are a fabrication of the mind,” the man said, and Gerry winced at the sound. He was also fairly certain that the statement was incorrect, but he didn’t feel like getting into a debate with a probable supernatural entity.

“Then why are you here?” he asked. 

“Must I be here for a reason?”

Gerry thought for a moment and then nodded. 

The man stared and just said, “You’re big now,” like that was supposed to mean anything.

Gerry sighed and pulled out a book. It was obvious nothing was going to come out of this exchange. 

The man didn’t say anything else, and Gerry had a feeling that he was just… watching. After a time, though, Gerry heard a creak and when he looked up, the man and the door was gone. 

He resolved not to think about it. 

He was still resolving not to think about it when the man came again. And again. And  _ again _ . Gerry was expecting him and his door creak at this point, along with the fifty-fifty chance of either hearing something cryptic and convoluted or nothing at all. 

After a few weeks, Gerry sighed and said, “So what’s your name?”

The man was silent for a moment. It always took him some time to formulate a response, like he was perpetually surprised that Gerry had spoken to him. “Name?”

“If you’re going to keep coming, then I need to call you by something.”

The man didn’t respond. 

“Look, if it’s one of your quiet days, you can write it down,” Gerry said, gesturing to a paper and pen, “but I need to call you something.”

“What use has a name, though?” The man tilted his head and hair came tumbling down. Not to the floor, Gerry noticed. The hair seemed more concrete this time, like it was just slightly long hair tied into a low ponytail. “It’s an identifier.”

“Which is why it’s useful,” Gerry said. “If you don’t give me one, I’ll just call you… I don’t know. I’ll call you a name like… like Ryan.”

The man looked repulsed and Gerry huffed. 

“If you dislike it so much,” Gerry said, “you can leave. I’m only trying to  _ help _ .”

The man shot him a look, but before Gerry could discern what it meant, his features smoothed over. The man said in a quiet voice, “Apologies. You can call me Michael.”

The way Michael said it made it sound fake, like he just gave a poorly and hurriedly constructed alias. Gerry shrugged. His mum had come up with worse. 

“Alright, Michael,” he said, testing the name out, “do you want some tea?”

“Pardon?”

“Tea,” Gerry repeated. “Would you like some?”

“I—I suppose that’s fine?”

Gerry nodded and went to the kitchen to heat up some tea.

“What kind of tea is your favorite?” Gerry asked as he rummaged in the cabinets. 

“Favorite implies a consistent state of self,” Michael said. 

“Well, even if you had one, you’d be out of luck if it wasn’t black tea,” Gerry said, pulling out a few teabags. He heated the kettle and gestured at the chairs. 

“You can sit down, you know?”

Gerry turned back to the kettle and heard the slight scraping of a chair. The rest of the time it took to make the tea was spent in silence, and when it was done, Gerry placed the tea in front of Michael. 

Michael apparently could feel no heat or wasn’t bothered by it, considering he wrapped his hands around the mug and drank the boiling hot tea. 

“So,” Gerry said, waiting for his own tea to cool slightly, “are you a friend of Mum’s?”

“No.”

Gerry frowned. “So you really are just a stranger that came into my house.”

“No, I am not a stranger.” Michael shifted around and drank more tea. 

“Well, tell me how you’re not, and I’ll let you stay,” Gerry said. 

Michael raised a brow. “How will you get rid of me if I don’t tell?”

Gerry grabbed Michael’s hand, ignoring how wrong and strangely pointed it felt, and started to drag him out of the kitchen. 

“What are you doing?” Michael asked, his voice a mix between confusion and amusement. 

Gerry said nothing until he was in the library, and then he started to find which Leitner book would do the deed well. 

“Gerry, what are you doing?”

Gerry froze. “Getting rid of you,” he said, almost mechanically. “But how did you know my name?”

Michael eyed the book with some apparent suspicion. That was good to know, in case Gerry did actually need a line of defense. Mum would be absolutely  _ pissed _ that he touched one of her precious books but at this point, Gerry cared more about him not dying than Mum being mad. 

“I knew your father,” Michael said after a moment. 

The words echoed in his head and it took Gerry an embarrassingly long time to understand them. Then, not even looking at Michael, he put the book back and walked himself to his room where he promptly collapsed on his bed. 

&&&

Michael looked at Eric Delano’s son with some degree of concern. No, not concern. Confusion. No, not confusion. Another feeling that twisted until it was something else entirely. For not the first time and certainly not the last, Michael wished he could just shut his feelings off. 

Gerry was on his bed and Michael stood at the bedroom entrance, unsure of whether he should come in and check if Gerry was still alive or respect Gerry’s space. 

Gerry would want space. He was, what? Almost a teenager? Teenagers liked to have space. Besides, checking if he was alive would necessitate touching him, and Michael was already having enough trouble making his appearance and voice relatively kid friendly. 

Michael fidgeted in the doorway, contemplating bringing up his own escape so he could rest within himself, when Gerry pushed himself up from the bed and stared at him. 

“So. You knew Dad.”

Michael nodded.

“You don’t look that old,” Gerry said and Michael blinked at the statement. Did that… did that mean he looked  _ young _ ? He supposed it was a possibility, but the presumption of any characteristic being ascribed to him made his skin crawl. 

Michael settled for a shrug. 

“Did—did you—how did you know him?”

“We worked in the same place.”

“The Archives?” Gerry perked up slightly. “You  _ worked _ there?”

Michael frowned because no, that had to be wrong.  _ Michael _ had never worked there. Michael with a body that wasn’t real and didn’t work hadn’t ever been in the Archives. 

Ah. That was right. Michael  _ Shelley _ had worked there. 

“Michael worked there, yes,” he said and Gerry looked vaguely confused. “They didn’t work together very long, though. Only about a year, and then Eric left.”

“And then Mum killed him,” Gerry said bitterly. Or maybe it was anger. Or maybe it was—

It didn’t matter what it was. 

“That doesn’t explain how you know me,” Gerry said. 

“Eric showed baby pictures of you to Michael,” Michael said. “Eric was… that was the happiest he had been in a long while. He talked a lot about his son.”

“And he called me Gerry?” 

Michael nodded and Gerry hugged his knees.

“Michael?” Gerry asked just as Michael thought about leaving. “You are Michael, right?”

Michael shrugged. 

Gerry frowned and continued, “Why are you here  _ now? _ It’s been twelve years.”

“I,” and a grin tugged at Michael’s mouth just thinking of it, “quit. And I heard about what happened to Eric. He said that he… he said he wanted to quit to take care of you. And he’s dead, so he’s not taking care of you.”

“So you were friends and now you decided to honor your dead friend’s wish?” There was a lilt to Gerry’s voice, like he was trying not to sound sad, like he was being sarcastic, like he was—

Michael almost growled to get himself to stop thinking. At times like these, he really wished that he was separate, the Distortion and Michael Shelley and not just Michael. The Distortion wouldn’t have been in this situation to begin with and Michael Shelley… 

Michael Shelley would probably be struggling. He had never been good at social interactions. 

“I need to do something,” Michael said after it occurred to him that there had been a long silence.

Gerry made some sniffing sounds and Michael wondered if now would be a good time to go. Something in him stayed rooted to the spot though, and that part grew alarmed (or was it concerned? Or was it—) when Gerry’s eyes were tinged the slightest bit red. 

“Do you have more tea?” Michael asked. 

“Only black,” Gerry said. “I told you that.”

Right. That was true. 

“We didn’t finish tea,” Michael said. “We should go finish it.”

“I never really liked black tea all that much,” Gerry muttered. 

“Coffee?” Michael suggested. 

“There’s no coffee in the house.”

“Then we go outside of the house,” Michael said. He wondered what it meant that Gerry got up and actually followed. 

It didn’t matter. It did matter that he was now heading to get coffee with a child (and wasn’t coffee bad for children?) when he had no money. 

He supposed he could probably find a wallet or two in the hallways, if worse came to worst. 

**Author's Note:**

> So that's chapter one! If you liked, please leave kudos/comments and feel free to point out any typos. Can't promise I'll regularly update this, since my plan now is just to spit out the first chapters of fics I want to write and then bouncing in between them. Still, I hope you enjoyed this and have a nice day.


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